increasing pensions and restoring
to the pension list the names of parties which for cause have been
dropped. To aid Executive duty they were referred to the Pension Bureau
for examination and report. After a delay absolutely necessary they have
been returned to me within a few hours of the limit constitutionally
permitted for Executive action. Two hundred and thirty-two of these
bills are thus classified:

Eighty-one cover cases in which favorable action by the Pension Bureau
was denied by reason of the insufficiency of the testimony filed to
prove the facts alleged.

These bills I have approved on the assumption that the claims were
meritorious and that by the passage of the bills the Government has
waived full proof of the facts.

Twenty-six of the bills cover claims rejected by the Pension Bureau
because the evidence produced tended to prove that the alleged
disability existed before the claimant's enlistment; 21 cover claims
which have been denied by such Bureau because the evidence tended to
show that the disability, though contracted in the service, was not
incurred in the line of duty; 33 cover claims which have been denied
because the evidence tended to establish that the disability originated
after the soldier's discharge from the Army; 47 cover claims which have
been denied because the general pension laws contain no provisions under
which they could be allowed, and 24 of the claims have never been
presented to the Pension Bureau.

I estimate the expenditure involved in these bills at more than $35,000
annually.

Though my conception of public duty leads me to the conclusion, upon the
slight examination which I have been able to give such of these bills as
are not comprised in the first class above mentioned, that many of them
should be disapproved, I am utterly unable to submit within the time
allowed me for that purpose my objections to the same.

They will therefore become operative without my approval.

A sufficient reason for the return of the particular bill now under
consideration is found in the fact that it provides that the name of
Andrew J. Hill be placed upon the pension roll, while the records of the
Pension Bureau, as well as a medical certificate made a part of the
committee's report, disclose that the correct name of the intended
beneficiary is Alfred J. Hill.

GROVER CLEVELAND.

EXECUTIVE MANSION, _May 17, 1886_.

_To the Senate of the United States_:

I return without app